DEI EX MACHINA:a note on plural/mass indefinite determiners

Roberto Zamparelli1

This article argues that the Italian plural indefinite article dei and its French coun-

terpart is a partitive structure without an overt numeral. Unlike a similar proposal

in (Chierchia 1998a), the present account crucially holds that the definite DP em-

bedded in these ‘defective partitives’ is a kind-denoting DP. This assumption derives

the lack of existence presupposition, the absence of cardinal numerals after dei, the

restrictions to certain types of DPs, the failure of ne-extraction and various other

properties of this construction.

1 Introduction

Since the end of the nineties the structure and meaning of Romance plural/mass indefinite nom-

inals has been a matter of some debate (Chierchia 1998a; Bosveld-De Smet 1998,2004,Storto

2003; Roy 2001). Meaningwise, the determiners that introduce these nominals, degli and des

in (1), behave as plural or mass indefinite articles, equivalent to the English some in some peo-

ple/water. Morphologically, however, degli and des appear to be composed of the preposition di

“of” incorporated with the regular form of the definite article (il/lo/la/i/gli/le in Italian, le/la/les

in French; I will henceforth use dei and des for the whole paradigm).

0Thanks to Alan Munn, Valentina Bianchi for comments and corrections. Special thanks to an anonymous

reviewer for Studia Linguistica, whose comments almost exceeded the length of the paper. All remaining errors are

of course my own.

1

(1) a. HoI_have

incontratomet

[degli[of_the

studenti].students]

Italian

“I have met some students.”

b. J’I

aihave

rencontrémet

[des[of_the

étudiants].students]

French

“I have met [some students].”

The process by which the definite article and a preposition combine into a preposizione articolata

is completely standard in Italian and French. In particular, the combination di/de+Def-Art can

be found in overt partitives, illustrated in (3) (Selkirk 1977, Hoeksema 1996).

(2) a. HoI_have

incontratomet

trethree

degliof_the

studenti.students.

b. J’I

aihave

rencontrémet

troisthree

desof_the

étudiants.students.

The question addressed in this article is whether the similarity between (1) and (2) justifies de-

riving the former from the latter in a compositional fashion; whether—in other terms—(1) are

“partitives without a number”. The answer I will propose is partly positive, partly negative: I will

argue that dei/des are compositionally derived via a complex structure akin to that of partitives,

but that the ‘partitive’ semantics applies not to a normal definite nominal, but to a kind-denoting

definite of the type studied in Zamparelli (2002). Specifically, I propose that the base of a plu-

ral/mass indefinite like (3a) is not the definite we find in (3b) and which must refers to some

unique or familiar set of dodos, but the one we see in (3c), which would be rendered in English

by a bare plural.

(3) a. [Dei[of_the

dodo]dodos]

dormivanoslept

nellain

miamy

gabbia.cage

“Some dodos slept in my cage”

2

b. [I[the

dodo]dodos]

stannoare

dormendosleeping

nellain_the

gabbia.cage

“the dodos are sleeping in my cage” (some specific ones).

c. [I[the

dodo]dodos]

siself

sonoare

estintiextinct

“Dodos have become extinct” (as a species)

The structure of the paper is as follows. In section 2 I present the view that dei/des-nominals

are partitives. In section 3 some old and new problems for this proposal are reviewed. Section 4

gives reasons to preserve some aspects of a dei-raising analysis. Sections 5 and 6 give the core

of my proposal, address the problems raised in 3 and 4, and discuss the role of di. Section 7

addresses the non availability of the construction with singular counts. 8 discusses other points

related to economy of structure, and concludes.

2 Chierchia’s theory

Considering the similarity between (1) and (2) Chierchia (1998a) proposes that the two con-

structions are structurally identical ((4) and (5)) and refers to the former as the bare partitive

construction.

(4) a. Deiof_the

folletti.elves

b. [DP [D D0] [NP [N 0[+part]] [PP di [DP i folletti]]]]

c. [DP [D deij] [NP [N tj] [PP tj [DP tj folletti]]]]

(5) a. AlcuniSome

deiof_the

folletti.elves

b. [DP [D alcuni] [NP [N 0[+part]] [PP di [DP i folletti]]]]

3

According to Chierchia, the only difference between bare and overt partitives is the lack of an

overt numeral in the higher D position. In order to license this position, the complex definite

article + preposition de+i moves to D, the position occupied by the numeral (5b) in overt parti-

tives. In Chierchia’s analysis “0[+part]” is an empty relational noun which selects an obligatorily

definite DP and is responsible for the partitive meaning (i.e. 0[+part] denotes λxλy[y≤x]). The

composition between 0[+part] and the definite article gives (6a). In the next step, de+i raises to

D, and an existential type-shift takes place (λPλQ∃x[P(x) ∧ Q(x)] composes with the denota-

tion of de+i). The result is a determiner-type denotation (<<et><<et>t>) where the partitive

meaning is embedded in the first term of the conjunction (6b)).

(6) a. J0[+part]K ◦ JtheK = λRλx[ x≤ ιR]

b. J[DP deij]K = λPλQ∃x[P(x) ∧ Q(x)]) ◦ λRλx[ x≤ ιR] =

λPλQ∃x[ x≤ ιP(x) ∧ Q(x)]

As Chierchia points out, one syntactic advantage of this analysis is that it derives the impossibility

of coordinating dei with other determiners. If dei was a plural numeral, we would expect it to

appear in coordinations with a cardinal (7a), or with a vague cardinality adjective (7b), on the

model of (8). Yet both possibilities are strongly ungrammatical.

(7) a. *UnaOne

oor

delleof_the

persone.people.

b. *MolteMany

oor

(solo)(only)

delleof_the

persone.people.

(8) a. [uno[one

oor

due]two]

documentidocuments

b. [molti[many

oor

pochi]few]

documentidocuments

4

If dei is derived from an internal DP and moved to a higher D position, the resulting structure

would be either one where a head (D) is coordinated with a phrase, the DP containing the chain

of dei (9a), or one where the coordination applies to heads (9b), but dei has moved to the conjunct

position from outside, in violation of the ATB-constraint. Either way, the result is excluded.2

(9) a. *[DP [&P [D una] o [DP dellei ... [DP ti persone]]]]

b. *[DP [&P [D una] o [D dellei]] ti persone]

Raising the de+i complex to D and performing existential closure gives dei the scope possi-

bilities of a full-fledged determiner. In particular, Italian dei can take scope over other operators,

much as the English plural indefinite determiner some, and unlike bare plurals.

(10) a. NonNot

hoI_have

vistoseen

ragazzi.boys

only ¬ > ∃

“I haven’t seen boys”

b. NonNot

hoI_have

vistoseen

deiof_the

ragazzi.boys

√∃ > ¬

“I haven’t seen some boys” or “There are boys I haven’t seen”

Interestingly, even though the dei-nominal as a whole has an indefinite meaning, it cannot be

used in negative existential statements: (11) cannot mean “Elves do not exist”, only “Some elves

are not present (in some spatio-temporal location)”.

(11) Non ci sono dei folletti.

not there are of_the elves

“There aren’t some elves”

According to Chierchia, this follows from the fact that—unlike a bare plural—the bare partitive

in (10b) contains a ι-operator, which triggers the existence presuppositions normally associated

5

with definiteness. The conflict with existential statements is predicted by analyzes in which the

internal noun phrase of a felicitous existential statement must not carry any presupposition of

existence of its own (e.g. Zucchi 1995). Thus, the partitive analysis captures both the otherwise

coincidental homophony between these indefinite articles and the partitive, and a peculiar aspect

of their distribution.

A last advantage of Chierchia’s analysis is that it correctly predicts the lack of dei-indefinites

in languages where a plural indefinite determiner is available. This follows from the assumption

that if a language has an overt lexical item to obtain a given meaning it cannot resort to covert

operators to obtain the same meaning (unless this move is independently motivated, see Chierchia

1998b for a full discussion). A case in point is Spanish, which has a partitive very similar to the

Italian one, but also a plural indefinite determiner, unos: as predicted, no dei construction exists

in Spanish.

3 Storto’s criticism

Storto (2003) raises various arguments against Chierchia’s bare partitive analysis. One concerns

cross-linguistic differences between plural/mass indefinite articles in Italian and French. Unlike

Italian dei, which can take either wide or narrow scope, French des must have narrowest scope,

like Italian and English existentially interpreted bare plurals (12a) (see also Bosveld-De Smet

1998, 2004). In addition, in Italian dei-nominals have no particular syntactic restrictions, while

French des-nominals do. According to Roy 2001 and Delfitto 1993, they cannot appear as pre-

verbal subjects of unaccusative predicates (12b).

6

(12) a. Toutall

lesthe

visiteursvisitors

onthave

luread

desof_the

journaux.newspapers

no ∃ > ∀ reading

“All the visitors have read newspapers”

b. *?Desof_the

linguisteslinguists

sontare

arrivés.arrived

In Bosweld-de Smet (2004), however, the nature of the restriction seems to be essentially seman-

tic: des/du forms are claimed to be impossible as subjects of individual-level predicates (13a),

and to require a coda with certain stage-level predicates (13b).

(13) a. *DesOf_the

enfantschildren

sontare

trèsvery

observateurs.observing

b. DesOf-the

passteps

sontare

visiblesvisible

??(sur(in

lathe

neige).snow)

Setting aside a discussion of the precise characterization of these restrictions, it is evident that

without additional assumptions no common analysis can be given for the meaning and distribu-

tion of bare partitives in Italian and French.

A second and more serious challenge for Chierchia’s analysis is that the ι-operator embed-

ded in his semantics for bare partitives makes predictions that are too strong. First, if the ill-

formedness of (11) as a pure existential statement is due to presuppositions of existence asso-

ciated with dei, positive existential statements should be expected to be just as bad (much as

?? “there are the elves”), while they are perfectly fine.

(14) SoI_know

chethat

cithere

sonoare

deiof_the

follettielves

eand

primasooner

oor

poilater

ne troverò.I will find them

“I know elves exist, and sooner or later I’ll find them”

Indeed, the same pattern is found even in English with the determiner some:

(15) a. *There aren’t some elves (any more).

7

b. There are (still) some elves.

Storto concludes that the problem must lie in the negative polarity of these sentences, and suggest

a connection with the fact that dei cannot be focused (see Storto 2003, sec. 4.3 ). Presuppositions

of existence do not play any role in this explanation.

A second and more general issue is that Chierchia’s analysis predicts synonymy between

(16a) and (at least some reading of) (16b), modulo the semantic effect of P+D raising to the

upper D. (16b) is in fact like (16a), except for the overt presence of alcuni “someplur”.

(16) a. Dei folletti.

of_the elves.

“Some elves”

b. Alcuni dei folletti.

some of_the elves.

“Some of the elves”

Storto (2003) gives (17) (his example (10), see also his sec. 4.3) as a case where this synonymy

does not obtain. (17a) is contradictory because the use of a full partitive presupposes the ex-

istence of a larger group of martians which have not landed. No contradiction arises in (17b),

which carries no implicature that the group that landed is part of a (specific/definite) larger group.

In other terms, (17a) obeys the constraint of proper partitivity, which dictates that a partitive must

denote a plurality smaller that he one denoted by the definite it embeds (hence the oddness of two

of my parents, one of my mother, see Barker 1998). In (17b) proper partitivity is not observed,

and the relation expressed by 0+part reduces to equality.

8

(17) a. #[Alcuni[some

deiof_the

marzianimartians

chethat

sonoare

atterratilanded

nelin

miomy

giardino]igarden]i

mi hanno dettotold me

chethat

loroi

theyi

sonoare

glithe

ultimilast

dellaof

lorotheir

specie.species.

b. [Dei[of_the

marzianimartians

chethat

sonoare

atterratilanded

nelin

miomy

giardino]igarden]i

mi hanno dettotold me

chethat

loroi

theyi

sonoare

glithe

ultimilast

dellaof

lorotheir

specie.species.

“Some martians that have landed in my garden told me they are the last of their

species”

An even sharper contrast comes from cases of generic quantification: (18a) is compatible

with a situation in which some true Italians eat spaghetti but most do not; this is not true of

(18b), which is a real generalization on what it takes, at least foodwise, to be a true Italian.

(18) a. Alcuni dei veri italiani mangiano (sempre) gli spaghetti.

some of_the true Italians eat (always) the spaghetti.

“Some of the true Italians (always) eat spaghetti.”

b. Dei veri italiani mangiano (sempre) gli spaghetti.

of_the true Italian eat (always) the spaghetti.

“True Italians (always) eat spaghetti”

To be sure, there are contexts in which the ι-operator embedded in the bare partitive does

seem to show up. In (19) dei and alcuni dei are fairly interchangeable (Chierchia, p.c.):

(19) AllaAt_the

festaparty

c’there

eranowere

moltimany

ragazziboys

eand

ragazze.girls.

Poi,Then,

{alcuni{some

deiof_the

ragazziboys

//

deiof_the

ragazzi}boys}

sono andati via.have left.

Here dei ragazzi can mean “some of the boys that have just been mentioned”. On further re-

flection, however, this possibility does not necessarily mean that dei embeds a definite DP, but

9

simply that, like all other plural indefinites (and unlike the singular “a”), dei has a D-linked

reading available. The first sentence above can in fact be continued with:

(20) ......

{Molti{many

//

alcunisome

//

tre}three}

ragazziboys

se ne sonohave

andati(,left(,

glithe

altriothers

sonohave

rimasti)stayed)

where the indefinites can be interpreted as many/some/three of the boys there were. Obviously,

this meaning cannot be due to the possibility that these indefinites embed a ‘hidden’ definite

determiner.

Considering these facts, the presence of an ι-operator in the semantics provided by the parti-

tive analysis seems to be more of a hindrance than an advantage. The partitive account can stand

only in conjunction with a principled account for why the definite inside the bare partitive is not

generally “felt” to be there. Lacking such an account, Storto concludes that the uniform parti-

tive analysis is not viable, that “bare partitives” are after all not partitives at all, and that Italian

dei and French des, though perhaps diacronically derived from partitives, are now perceived as

lexical determiners, with distinct scopal properties.

It seems to me that this solution throws away the baby with the bath water. Still unexplained

is why, in various languages, a lexical indefinite determiner should have developed, ex-machina,

from a defective partitive construction, or at least in the shape of a prepositional phrase. In

addition, the Italian/French scope differences cannot be immediately derived. Last but not least,

there are three reasons why dei/des cannot be reduced to a Romance equivalent of some, a near-

synonym of alcuni/quelques. First, unlike dei and the singular indefinite article, alcuni/some/-

quelques cannot be bound by generic operators or adverbs of quantification. Contrast (18)b with

the English (21):

(21) {Adolescents / an adolescent / *some adolescent(s)} is/are {generally / often} tall.

10

Second, unlike dei, some/alcuni/quelques cannot appear in predicate nominals such as (22).3

(22) Queithose

venti20

uominimen

sonoare

{*alcune{ some

//

delle}of_the}

bravegood

persone.people

Third and perhaps most importantly, dei differs from all other Italian indefinites, alcuni in-

cluded, in not allowing the extraction of the clitic pro-NP ne (Belletti and Rizzi 1981, Zamparelli

1995,Ch.4), in many ways the analogous of English one-pronominalization. Starting from (23a),

(24b) illustrates a well-formed ne-extraction from various types of indefinite determiners, while

the sharply ill-formed (23c) contains our indefinite construction with dei, demonstratives, defi-

nites and normal partitives.

(23) a. ConoscoI_know

{alcuni{some

//

trethree

//

moltimany

//

degliof_the

//

questithese

//

glithe

//

tre3

degli}of_the}

studentistudents

francesiFrench

simpatici.nice

“I know some/three/many/these/the/three of the nice French students”

b. Diof

studentistudents

francesi,French,

nei

CLi

conoscoI_know

{alcuni{some

//

trethree

//

moltimany

}}

titi

simpatici.nice

“French students, I know some/three/many nice ones”

c. *Diof

studentistudents

francesi,French,

nei

CLi

conoscoI_know

{dei{of_the

//

ithe

//

questithese

//

trethree

dei}of_the}

titi

simpatici.nice

The impossibility of extracting ne from under dei is not dependent on a ‘specific’ reading of the

dei-nominal. (24), for instance, is not out only as a question about some specific pieces of paper

the hearer is seeking—a reading which would be pragmatically hard to get with any indefinite.

(24) *Diof

pezzipieces

diof

carta,paper,

neCLi

cerchiyou_search

deiof_the

puliti?clean?

“as for pieces of paper, are you looking for clean ones?”

It is also not possible to rule out (24) by appealing to the hypothesis that dei needs a noun to cliti-

cize onto, unlike other indefinites but like the definite determiner. In (24) and (23b) ne-extraction

11

has stranded a DP-internal adjective, as made clear by the glossae, and definite determiners can

normally cliticize onto adjectives without any problem (witness i simpatici ragazzi “the nice

boys”). Moreover, if dei was a syncronically independent determiner it is not clear why the clitic

property of the definite determiner should carry over to it.

Taken together, these points show that treating dei as an independent indefinite determiner

leaves in the dark many aspects of its behavior. Let’s therefore search further in the neighborhood

of the partitive analysis.

4 Advantages of a “dei/des”-raising analysis

Chierchia’s analysis can be factored in two parts: the idea that bare dei-nominals are underlyingly

partitives, and the idea that their external DP is licensed by raising the determiner and its associate

P from the internal DP. Let’s call a theory that adopts the second assumption a dei/des-raising

analysis. I want to suggest that a dei/des-raising analysis is generally better suited than a purely

lexical account to deal with the binding and predicative facts in (23) and (24). Consider how a

possible analysis would run.

As we saw in (18), dei-nominals can be bound by a generic operator, but alcuni “some”

cannot, regardless of the presence of a partitive.

(25) {Alcuni{Some

degliof_the

italianiItalians

//

alcunisome

italiani}Italians}

amanolike

glithe

spaghetti.spaghetti

It cannot mean: “Generically speaking, Italians like spaghetti”

It seems reasonable to assume that operator-binding of D is possible only when this head position

is not filled by some over lexical operator (which would preempt the external binder). Assuming

a structure as in Chierchia’s (4)b, suppose that when binding of D (a variable) is provided by an

12

external adverbial dei is not interpreted in D, but in NumP, the position immediately below D

which hosts numerals.

(26) a. [DP De [NumP deii [NP ti [PP ti [DP ti ragazzi]]]]] LF: external binding possible

b. [DP [D deii] [NP ti [PP ti [DP ti ragazzi]]]] LF: external binding impossible

Of course, it is quite possible, perhaps even plausible from a syntactic licensing standpoint, that

all determiners must at some point be in D (or its Spec), either by being merged or by moving

there. Assuming this as a working hypothesis, a semantic division emerges: determiners that

reach D with a sufficiently ‘rich’ set of semantic features can be either interpreted in D or recon-

structed in Num; those without the necessary features must be interpreted in Num; those merged

in D must always be interpreted in D (no ‘semantic lowering’). The determiners interpreted in

D (or its Spec) include ‘strong’ quantifiers, in Milsark’s sense, specific indefinites and proper

names.

Suppose now that Italian dei can be interpreted in D or in Num, while English some is base-

generated in D. As a result, no adverbial binding of “some” obtains.4 If, as argued in Zamparelli

(1995), predicate nominals are subparts of DPs which exclude the DP layer (e.g. bare NumPs),

this captures the fact that some is not able to head predicate nominals:

(27) a. Quei venti uomini sono [NumP dellei ... [DP ti brave persone]] = (22)

b. *Those 20 men are [DP some good people]

The scope differences between French and Italian can now be approached along the same line,

and tied to the well-known fact that while French does not have bare plurals, its des-nominals

(particularly in the characterization given by Bosweld-de Smet 2004) closely match the meaning

and distribution of English existentially interpreted bare plurals.

13

In the system sketched above, French des-nominals can reach D and syntactically license the

DP, but cannot be interpreted in this higher position, only in Num. Their existential meaning

comes from existential closure (in the sense of Kratzer 1989, Diesing 1992), and is available

only within a certain limited domain (Diesing’s “VP”). Italian dei-nominals, on the other hand,

can also be interpreted in D, a difference probably linked to the fact that dei/des incorporate an

inaudible nominal element: in French (a language where even vocatives require a definite deter-

miner: bonjour les enfants!), nouns are not sufficient rich in φ-features to allow an interpretation

at D (Delfitto and Schroten 1992), while in Italian they are.

The last point, the impossibility of extracting ne from under dei, follows straightforwardly if

the definite determiner that starts out at the edge of the lower DP in the structure (26) blocks an

‘escape hatch’ for NP-extraction (see Fiengo and Higginbotham 1981, Bowers 1988 for different

incarnations of this idea).5 Despite their indefinite meaning, dei-nominals are once again aligned

with real partitives:

(28) *Diof

studenti,students,

nei

CLi

conoscoI_know

trethree

deiof

tithe

simpatici.nice

Considering these facts, a dei/des analysis of the sort I just presented seems worth a deeper

investigation. Of course, to make it viable, it is important to address and dismiss the problems

listed in the previous sections, plus two serious syntactic pitfalls that Storto doesn’t discuss.

First, in regular partitives the embedded definite DP may include numerals (29a). Yet, internal

numerals are completely impossible in bare partitives (29b).

(29) a. AlcuniSome

deiof_the

dieciten

ragazzi.boys.

b. *DeiOf_the

dieciten

ragazzi.boys.

14

(29b) would of course be expected if dei was an indefinite determiner, but then the data in (7)

(the failure of dei to coordinate with any other determiner type, noted by Chierchia) would be

unexpected.

Second, overt partitives can be built over null-nominal definite possessives such as i loro

‘theirs’, lit. ‘the their’, i miei ‘mine’, lit. ‘the mine’ (30a), but the corresponding bare partitives

are impossible (30b).6

(30) a. Tre3

deiof_the

mieimine

valgonoare_worth

sei6

deiof_the

loro.their

“Three of mine are worth six of theirs”

b. *Deiof_the

mieimine

valgonoare_worth

deiof_the

loro.their

Both facts are utterly mysterious if bare partitives are simply partitives minus the number. In the

next section I introduce the ingredients for a solution.

5 Romance kind-denoting definites

As is well known since Contreras (1986) and Casalegno (1987), Romance languages use plural

or mass definites in sentences where English would use bare plural count or bare singular mass

nominals with a “generic” or “kind” reading. The following are representative examples from

Italian.

(31) a. [I[the

cani]dogs]

si trovanocome

una

po’bit

inin

tutteall

lethe

taglie.sizes.

“Dogs come in all different sizes.”

b. [I[the

pitbull]pitbulls]

sonoare

impopolariunpopular

inin

Inghilterra.England

“Pitbulls are unpopular in England.”

15

c. [Gli[the

uccelli]birds]

si sono evolutievolved

da[ifrom[the

rettili].reptiles].

“Birds evolved from reptiles”

d. [L’[The

elio]helium]

èis

abbondanteabundant

nell’in the

universo.universe

“Helium is abundant in the universe.”

e. [I[the

fisiciphysicists

nucleari]nuclear]

studianostudy

[gli[the

atomi].atoms].

“Nuclear physicists study atoms”

f. PasteurPasteur

scoprìdiscovered

[gli[the

antibiotici].antibiotics]

“Pasteur discovered antibiotics”

g. IlOn the

Quintofifth

Giorno,day,

aat

mezzogiorno12 o’clock

spaccato,sharp,

DioGod

creòcreated

[le[the

zebre].zebras].

“On the fifth day, at 12 o’clock sharp, God created zebras”.

Since Carlson (1977b), the predicates in (31) have been taken to select a kind sort in the ar-

gument(s) in brackets. Following Zamparelli (2002), I will assume that the Italian bracketed

definites above denote “kinds of things”, much as in Carlson’s proposal for bare plurals in En-

glish.

My proposal is that the ‘partitive determiner’ dei/des is not a special indefinite determiner, but

rather a Preposition+Determiner complex in a raising structure built on a kind-denoting definite.7

In first approximation, this means adopting the structure proposed in Chierchia (1998a), repeated

below in (32), but with the internal definite DP denoting a kind (this structure will be slightly

modified in the next section). Semantically, I propose that while the internal DP denotes a kind,

outside the PP the denotation we are dealing with is simply an (intensional) set of objects, i.e. a

regular plural common noun denotation.

(32) [DP [D deij] [NP tj [PP tj [DP tj folletti]]]]

16

The details of the semantic proposal will be given in Sec. 6. Informally, the composition of a

bare partitive such as (33a) would be not (33b), but (33c).

(33) a. Ho incontrato degli studenti. =(1)

b. “I met some of [the unique group of students in context]” Base: “Object” definite

meaning

c. “I met some instances of [the student-kind]” Base: “Kind” definite meaning

Consider four immediate advantages of this proposal. First, it automatically explains why

languages which do not express kinds using plural/mass definite DPs (e.g. English, German)

do not have bare partitives either. This effect was captured in Chierchia’s analysis by means

of a complex set of assumptions about type-shifting and semantic typology (see the discussion

around Chierchia’s 1998a ex. (42)), which now become entirely superfluous.

Second, one notable property of Romance kind-denoting definites is that their extensional

existence presuppositions are void. There is nothing contradictory or redundant in (34):

(34) Ithe

fantasmighosts

nonnot

cithere

sono,are,

(mentre(while

ithe

vampirivampires

esistono).exist)

“There aren’t any ghosts, (but vampires exist)”

According to this statement, there are no instances of the ghost-kind in the current world/time

(kinds must have realizations in some possible world, but not necessarily in the actual one). This

automatically explains the vanishing existence presuppositions of dei-nominals noted by Storto.

The non-existence of a bare partitive with null-nominal possessives (e.g. dei loro seen in

(30b)) follows from the fact that such DPs have a strong tendency to be normal object-level

definites. Indeed, if we try to apply kind-selecting predicates (like be extinct, become widespread,

etc.) to these DPs we get (at best) a subkind/taxonomic reading. For instance, assuming that

17

professor Gilligan has spent his life studying dinosaurs, to say (35a) in reference to him means,

if anything, (35c), not (35b).

(35) a. (A proposito(speaking

diof

dinosauri,)dinosaurs,)

[i[the

suoi]his]

sihave

sonobecome

{estinti{extinct

//

diffusi}widespread}

nelin_the

tardolate

CretacicoCretacic

b. Dinosaursi became extinct/widespread in late Cretacic, and theyi have a salient

relation with Gilligan.

c. The types of dinosaurs that have a salient relation with Gilligan became extinct/widespread

in the late Cretacic.

In the subkind reading the common noun denotes a set of kinds, rather than a set of objects (see

Carlson 1977a, Krifka et al. 1995, Krifka 1995, Zamparelli 1998). If the bare partitive is derived

from the kind and not from the subkind or the object reading, the absence of dei suoi/loro as

indefinites follows from the semantic restriction of (35a), to which I will return shortly.

The kind reading of Romance definites is also blocked if a numeral is inserted after the article

(see Dayal 2000 for an account). For instance, even if there was a total of 3000 wolves on Earth,

(36) can only be very odd statements about particular groups of wolves—the normal object-level

interpretation of the definite is forced.

(36) a. ??[[

Ithe

tremila3000

lupiwolves

]]

si sono evolutievolved

moltovery

lentamente.slowly

b. ??[[

Ithe

tremila3000

lupiwolves

]]

diventanobecome

più grandibigger

comeas

sione

viaggiatravels

verso nord.North

Now the impossible *dei 3000 lupi “of_the 3000 wolves” can no longer have the structure (37)

(pre-movement), an obvious candidate if the internal DP was a normal definite.

18

(37) *[DP ... [PP de [DP i 3000 lupi]]]

However, to exclude this case completely, we must make sure that the numeral cannot be located

in the external DP, either, for if outside the PP we have a normal plural common noun denotation

the numeral should be perfectly compatible with it. How can we rule out (38), with movement

of dei to the higher D? The answer here is that de+i would have to hop over the head position

occupied by the numeral, in violation of the Head Movement Constraint (a case of Relativized

Minimality).

(38) *[DP deii 3000 [PP ti [DP ti lupi]]]]

Notice, however, that if the upper DP contained elements which did not block the transit of de+i

to D, a structure similar to (38) should in principle be allowed, and may in fact be quite useful

to explain a serious potential objection to the kind-based analysis—the fact that there are other

classes of definite nominals which cannot be interpreted as kinds but which do form the base for

bare partitives. In (39) a kind reading for the definites is blocked by the presence of modifiers

anchored to rigid designators, prenominal adjectival possessives and non restrictive adjectives

(see Zamparelli 2002, sec. 4.3. Again, I am excluding the subkind/taxonomic interpretation).8

(39) {[I{[the

canidogs

chethat

eranowere

quihere

ieri]yesterday]

//

[I[the

mieimy

cani]dogs]

//

[I[the

simpaticicute

cagnolini]}doggies]}

(??sono( are

estinti/rari).extinct)

The same definites can easily appear with dei (40). Notice that (40b) contrasts with the null-

nominal cases discussed above (cf. *ho visto dei miei saltare il cancello, lit. ‘I have seen of the

mine jump the gate’).

(40) a. C’there

eranowere

deiof_the

simpaticinice

cagnolini.doggies.

19

b. HoI_have

vistoseen

deiof_the

mieimy

canidogs

saltarejump

ilthe

cancello.gate

c. HoI_have

vistoseen

deiof_the

canidogs

chethat

eranowere

quihere

ieri.yesterday.

A first reaction to these data might be to retreat to the idea that “bare partitives” are ambiguous:

they can embed either normal definites or kind-denoting definites. The latter would have no

existence presuppositions, the former would. (40) would now be a case where the first option

is forced. This optionality, however, is neither theoretically desirable nor empirically correct:

it undermines the explanation for the absence of dei 3000 cani “of_the 3000 dogs”, and *dei

loro ‘of_the theirs’, which would now have a possible derivation. Moreover, the dei-nominals

in (40), which are by hypothesis based on normal definites, should always carry presuppositions

of extensional existence. This happens to be true for (40b,c), for independent reasons,9 but is

definitely false for (40a).

Fortunately, the possibility of playing over two DP levels gives a clean way to accommodate

these data. Unlike the numerals in (38), the adjectives and relatives in (40) are adjunct or spec-

ifiers; syntactically, there is no reason why they should block de+i-raising to D.10 In (41) these

modifiers are attached outside the kind-denoting definite and restrict a set of ordinary objects

derived from the kind:

(41) a. [DP1 deii simpatici ... [PP ti [DP2 ti cagnolini]]]

b. [DP1 deii miei ... [PP ti [DP2 ti cani]]]

c. [DP1 deii [PP ti [DP2 ti cani]] che erano qui ieri]

Consider now the minimally different nominals in (42):

20

(42) E’ difficileit is difficult

giudicareto judge

gli amici,the friends,

mabut

hoI_have

conosciutomet

{i{the

lorotheirs

//

deiof_the

lorotheir

amicifriends

//

*deiof_the

loro}theirs},

eand

mi sembrano OKthey seem OK

Why isn’t a structure like (41b) available for dei loro? The key is to observe that ‘null-nominal’

DPs must contain some kind of empty category, and that empty categories typically require

licensing, by lexical selection or feature sharing with some independently licensed element. In

this case, I suggest that the empty category is licensed by the possessive adjective and that to do

so the possessor must be in the same DP.11 This is not a problem for normal definites and full

partitives, but it blocks the kind reading needed for bare partitives.

Postulating a structure like (41) has another positive effect. As pointed out by an anonymous

reviewer, in certain contexts dei-nominals are more natural when they are modified in some way.

The effect becomes particularly strong in the pre-verbal position of existential statements like

(43). Interestingly, simple kind-denoting definites show, if anything, the opposite pattern (44).

(43) a. ??Degliof_the

elfielves

nondon’t

esistono.exist

b. Degliof_the

elfielves

{con{with

lathe

barbabeard

//

conwith

questethese

caratteristichecharacteristics

//

chethat

faccianopractice

Tai-Chi}Tai-chi}

nondon’t

esistono.exist

(44) a. Glithe

elfielves

nondon’t

esistono.exist

b. Glithe

elfielves

{?con{with

lathe

barbabeard

//

?conwith

questethese

caratteristichecharacteristics

//

?chethat

faccianopractice

Tai-Chi}Tai-chi}

nondon’t

esistono.exist

21

The explanation for this difference is that here dei-nominals compete with kind-denoting defi-

nites. Since their structure is more complex, in the absence of modifiers (i.e. (43a), (44a)) the

definites win. When modifiers are present, the possibility to use them with the kind definite, as

in (44b), depends on how easily they can be conceptualized as ‘natural classes’ (how easy it is to

think of elves that practice Tai-chi as a ‘class’ of elves). When this is not easily accomplished,

the structure in (43b) becomes preferred, since here the modifiers can be interpreted outside the

domain of the kind: among the individual object instances of the elf-kind we simply pick those

with certain additional (and possibly quite random) properties.

The idea of a competition between structures with the same meaning but a different level

of complexity can be used to shed some light on another issue, pointed out by an anonymous

reviewer, i.e. what blocks the possibility to build a full partitive over a kind-denoting DP, with

structure:

(45) [DP 3000 [PP de+ii [DPkindti lupi]]]]

This derivation would give us a regular partitive minus the existence/maximality presuppositions

normally conveyed by the definite. But this meaning does of course exist: it is nothing more than

the regular meaning of a numeral, applied to a common noun denotation within a single DP. An

approach in terms of structural economy predicts that a structure like (45) will never be used.

A last, indirect piece of evidence for the kind-based derivation of the partitive determiner

comes from examples which show the residual possibility of constructing existentials from kind-

based demonstrative DPs:

(46) a. HaHe_has

dettosaid

diof

quellethose

cose...!things...

“He said such (amazing/terrible/disconcerting/...) things!”

22

b. Aat

quelthat

punto,point,

luihe

hahas

fattomade

diof

quellethose

smorfie...faces

“At that point, he made such (ugly/bizarre/...) faces!”

Di quelle cose/smorfie behaves as an existential DP with an evaluative connotation. It means,

roughly, that someone made faces or said things of a very special and extraordinary nature (ex-

actly which nature can be clarified by the nominal or the context). Thus quelle cose/smorfie must

refer to a kind here, a fact confirmed by the observation that the insertion of a numeral after the

demonstrative simultaneously blocks the kind reading (exactly as in (36)) and the possibility for

these PPs to appear as objects:

(47) *HaHe_has

fattosaid

diof

quellethose

trethree

cose/smorfiethings

(che(that

conosci).you_know).

In this case, it seems that the demonstrative and the preposition cannot form a single element and

raise to license the upper D position. As a consequence, the distribution of these di+Demonstrative

nominals is limited to those positions where the DP can be licensed externally, in the same way

as a bare plural in Italian. In particular, the pre-verbal subject position is out (Longobardi 1994).

(48) a. *RicordoI_remember

chethat

[di[of

quellethose

cosethings

sonoare

successe!]happened]

b. *HoI_have

vistoseen

chethat

[di[of

quellethose

personepeople

sonoare

qui!]here]

6 The nature of “di”

Assuming that the internal DP2 denotes a kind, we turn to the role of di. In Chierchia’s account,

di is meaningless, and the semantics comes mostly from a null partitive N. In the present account

the partitive N is superfluous, so the semantic burden must be shifted back onto P. There are in

fact other Italian examples where we see di with kind-denoting nominals (DPs such as a strange

23

breed / a rare color), for instance the following predicational structures, where di is obligatory:

(49) FidoFido

erawas

[??(di)(of)

{una{a

razzabreed

particolareparticular

//

una

colorecolor

strano}]strange}

“Fido was (an animal) of a particular breed / a strange color”

One obvious approach is to say that the preposition that introduces dei-nominals is the lexical

realization of the type/sort-shifter ∪, the “up” operator defined in Chierchia (1998b), which maps

kinds into the set of their instantiations (a plural property).

(50) J[ of DP]K = ∪JDPK = {x | x is an individual instantiation of JDPK} with DP

kind-denoting

Apart from the proliferation of di-meanings which results, this idea is problematic with respect

to the reasonable proposal that languages cannot employ hidden type-shifting operators if they

have overt lexical elements with the same meaning (see Chierchia 1998b, Dayal 2000). If this

view is on the right track, a di meaning ∪ would end up blocking the application of ∪ in all di-less

contexts—probably an incorrect prediction.

One alternative is to adopt the system in Zamparelli (1998), which tries to give a unified

account of partitives and constructions like (49) above, and apply it to the case at issue. The

basic idea of this system is the following (here I simplify the internal DP structure).

The di/of of partitives is an operator with two arguments, one in complement position and

the other in specifier position. This operator, called R (“residue”) returns the denotation of its

specifier minus the denotation of its complement. The complement is a full DP; the specifier

is filled by a copy of the NP embedded in the complement DP (or perhaps more correctly, of

the projection for semantics plurality between D and NP, called PlP in Heycock and Zamparelli

2005). At spell-out, one of the copies of this NP (usually but not always the upper one) is not

24

pronounced. This gives the following syntax and semantics:

(51) a. [RP [NP boys]i [R′ of [DP the [NP boys]i]]]

b. J [RP boys of the boys ] K = J [NP boys]i K - { J [DP the [NP boys]i]K}

The NP boys denotes a set of plural boys (a join semi-lattice, containing all the possible pluralities

that can be assembled with some number of boys in the domain, including the singularities but

excluding the empty plurality). The definite the boys denotes the maximal element of the semi-

lattice (i.e. the largest plurality of boys in the domain). The result of the subtraction is the set

of all pluralities minus the largest one, which is the desired semantics for a partitive (see Barker

1998). This denotation is then fed to a numeral. Syntactically, this means that in partitives Num

selects an RP which has acquired nominal features from the NP in its specifier; semantically, the

cardinal in Num filters away any plurality which is incompatible with it. For example, with three

individual boys a, b and c in the domain, the derivation for two of the boys would be:

(52) a. JboyK = {a, b, c}

b. J [NP boys]K = {{a,b,c}, {a,b}, {b,c}, {a,c}, {a}, {b}, {c}}

c. J [DP the [NP boys]]K = Max(J [NP boys]K) = {a,b,c} extracting the largest

plurality as in Sharvy 1980

d. J [RP [NP boys] [R′ of [DP the boys]]]K = J [NP boys]K - { J [DP the boys]K} =

{{a,b,c}, {a,b}, {b,c}, {a,c}, {a}, {b}, {c}} - {{a,b,c}} =

{{a,b}, {b,c}, {a,c}, {a}, {b}, {c}} partitive denotation

e. J [NumP 2 [RP boys of the boys]] K = {{a,b}, {b,c}, {a,c}}

f. [DP D0 2 boys of the boys] Spell-out One

25

This account derives various features of partitives. Their subtractive semantics obtains proper

partitivity (see (53a)). Since the denotation of RP does not contain a supremum, the account

derives the impossibility of (unmodified) partitives to be introduced by a definite article (53b).

Next, partitives based on conjoined entity-denoting elements (names, pronouns or definites) are

correctly excluded (53c), since no NP which can raise to [Spec,RP] in this case. For other aspects

and details of the proposal, see Zamparelli (1998).

(53) a. {??Two / One} of my two parents.

b. ??The 3 of the boys came.

c. ??One of {John, Jack and Mary / you and me / the boy and the girl}

The question is now whether this system can be used to derive a plurality of objects from a

kind-denoting definite. The answer depends in part on the semantic mapping of common nouns.

Even for Carlson (1977b), bare plurals denotes kind entities only at the level we today call DP;

below, the common noun denoted a property. This remains the mainstream view in recent work

on this topic (e.g. Krifka 2003), supplemented with type/sort-shifting operators that obtain entity-

type kind meaning from intensional plural properties, and vice-versa (respectively, the “down”

∩ and “up” ∪ operators in Chierchia 1998b). Over the last ten years, however, it has also be

proposed that common nouns might directly denote kinds (see Zamparelli 1995, Krifka 1995,

Longobardi 2002, 2005). In this case, the job of the definite article in kind-denoting Romance

DPs would simply be that of letting the nominal denotation ‘shine through’ unmodified, a role

most directly implemented in Longobardi’s 1994 proposal that these articles are expletives and

that the meaning of the DP is entirely determined by the kind-noun, possibly via LF-raising to

D.

26

For the purpose of the semantics of di as a residue operator, assigning a kind denotation to

both specifier and complement would not produce a useful result: the set-complement operation

would apply to kind entities, rather than to sets, and would thus be undefined (54). If the kind

entity in Spec was type-shifted to a singleton property, set-complement would go through, but

only to yield the empty set, again not a helpful restriction.12

(54) J[RP [NP kcani] [R′ di [DP k

i cani]]]K =J[NP kcani]K - {J[DP k

i cani]K} = dogk - {dogk}

If however the NP denotes a plural property (here, a set of sets), we obtain the desired meaning,

namely the denotation of the plural NP itself (noted ∗JNK). This is because the dog-kind is not

a member of the set of pluralities of dogs, so the residue operation applies vacuously and the

denotation of [Spec,RP] is returned unmodified (55).

(55) J[RP [NP <<et>t> cani] [R′ of [DP ki cani]]]K = J[NP <<et>t> cani]K - {J[DP k i cani]K} =

∗dog’ - {dogk} = ∗dog’

But how plausible is it to assume that even kind-denoting definite contain properties? Recall that

the general strategy to decide whether a nominal has a kind or an object level denotation is to

look at the predicates that can apply to it. Be extinct/widespread apply directly to kinds, but such

predicates are a small minority. In most cases, the predicates that combine with kinds in charac-

terizing sentences can be analyzed as applying to the objects that instantiate the kind, quantified

over by a generic operator (GEN): this is indeed one of the main tenets of the quantificational

theory of genericity in Gerstner and Krifka (1987), Krifka et al. (1995).

Now, complex kind-denoting DPs can incorporate the very same adjectives that are treated

as object-denoting when they appear as predicates in characterizing sentences. Take (56a vs. b).

27

(56) a. [Gli[the

insettiinsect

resistentiresistant

alto

DDT]DDT]

si stanno diffondendo.are becoming widespread

b. [Gli[the

insettiinsect

chethat

siare

stannobecoming

diffondendo]widespread]

sonoare

resistentiresistant

alto

DDT.DDT

If resistenti al DDT must combine with an object (via GEN) in (56b), it is difficult to imagine

that it could combine with a kind in (56a). It follows that the noun insetti in (a) must be a

property, despite the fact that the bracketed DP as a whole denotes a kind. If insetti denoted a

kind as well, we would need to compositionally derive the subkind ‘insects that are resistant to

DDT’ by extracting instances from the insect-kind, applying to them the adjectival denotation,

then rewrapping the result into a new kind:

(57) ∩[λxo∈∪insects′: resistant-to-DDT′(x)]

But if this “open and rewrap” trick can be performed any time a modifier attaches to the nominal,

i.e. almost anywhere, the idea that nouns natively denote kinds becomes vacuous and essentially

untestable. I conclude that properties of objects must be (natively or derivatively) available inside

kind-denoting nominals, and that a derivation like (55) is thus viable. In what follows I will adopt

this system; for consistency with the rest of the paper, I will continue to mark the Residue Phrase

as PP.

7 The problem of singular count nouns

One remaining issue for a kind-based analysis of dei/des-nominals is why the application of di to

other kind-denoting nominals doesn’t give the same meaning or distribution as dei-nominals. For

instance, the predicates we have seen in (49) above cannot appear in argument position. Contrast

(58a) and (b):

28

(58) a. FidoFido

èis

[della[of_the

razzabreed

di cui parlavamo].we talked about]

b. *A proposito di animali,speaking of animals,

ho vistoI saw

[della[of_the

razzabreed

di cui parlavamo]we talked about]

it should mean: “...I saw one animal of the breed we talked about”

The solution, in this case, is likely to be in the syntax. Consider (59). The bracketed DP in (59a)

can be an argument or a predicate. As a predicate, however, it can apply to kinds (59b), but not to

objects (59c). To predicate of objects, the kind-final construction in (60a) must be used. Notice

that the post-copular N (un cane) can be absent (60b), but it cannot appear after the kind-noun

(60c).

(59) a. [La[the

razzabreed

diof

cane/idog(s)

di cui parlavamo]we talked about]

èè

questa.questa

b. Ilthe

chow-chowchow-chow

èis

[la[the

razzabreed

diof

cane/idog(s)

di cui parlavamo]we talked about]

c. #FidoFido

èis

[la[the

razzabreed

diof

cane/idog(s)

di cui parlavamo]we talked about]

(60) a. FidoFido

èis

una

canedog

dellaof_the

razzabreed

di cui parlavamo.we talked about

b. FidoFido

èis

dellaof_the

razzabreed

di cui parlavamo.we talked about

c. *FidoFido

èis

dellaof_the

razzabreed

diof

cane/idog(s)

di cui parlavamo.we talked about

Zamparelli (1998) proposes that (60a) is derived from (59c) by fronting di and cane to the spec-

ifier and head of a Residue Phrase. Since moved elements cannot usually be spelled out twice,

this explains why di cannot be repeated in (60c). If this is correct, (60b) must contain an empty

category (a pro-NP) denoting a property of objects, moved to [Spec,RP] and probably from there

29

to a higher specifier position within the DP.

(61) FidoFido

èis

proj

proj

dii+laofi+the

razzabreed

titi

tjtj

di cui parlavamo.we talked about

My suggestion is that the impossibility for [pro della razza] to be an argument comes from the

licensing requirements of this predicative empty category in a fronted DP position. A similar

constrains seems to be at work in (62) (from Bresnan 1973), when the predicative category too

tall is fronted.

(62) a. John is [a man too tall to serve].

b. [A man too tall to serve] can still be an asset.

c. John is [too tall a man to serve].

d. *[Too tall a man (to serve)] can still be an asset.

Another construction which appears to kind-denoting is the singular definite generic in brack-

ets in (63a). Di cannot combine with it in any position: both argumental and predicative cases

are completely out (63a,c).

(63) a. [Il[the

leone]lion]

èis

ilthe

reking

dellaof_the

foresta.forest

b. *[Del[of_the

leone]lion]

erawas

ilthe

reking

dellaof_the

foresta.forest

c. *SimbaSimba

erawas

[del[of_the

leone]lion]

This case can be excluded for the same reason that excludes normal singular count definites: for

a singular definite to be successful, the context must have narrowed the property in the restrictor

down to a singleton property. Thus, il leone ‘the lion’ is felicitous only if the NP leone denotes

the property of being the unique salient lion in a context, say Simba′. Plugging this in a residue

30

phrase we obtain the empty set.

(64) [DP [RP [NP leone] di [DP il [NP leone]]]] = Jleone<et>K - {Jil leoneK} = {Simba′} -

{Simba′} = ∅

Generic cases such as (63) are open to the same analysis, provided their NP contains a singleton

property like ‘being a lion-kind’, and not an object-level property (say, the set of all lions at

the current world). Evidence for the first possibility (put forth in Dayal 2004 and in part in

Zamparelli 1998) comes from the observation that the modifiers tolerated by the singular definite

generic are a subset of those accepted by bare plurals of Romance plural definite generics (see

Carlson 1977b:432). This suggests that these definites might not be decomposed into properties,

or at least, not as easily as their plural counterparts.

Pulling together the discussion so far, we arrive at the following formulation for the DP dei

ragazzi:

(65) Syntactic Structure for Kind-based dei/des-nominals:

a. [PP di [DP2 i [NP ragazzi]]]]]] Base

b. [PP [NP ragazzi] [P′ di+i [DP2 i ragazzi]]]]] Copying “ragazzi” and the article

c. [DP1 dei [NumP dei [PP [NP ragazzi] [P′ dei [DP2 i ragazzi]]]]] Merging NumP, DP,

moving dei and erasing intermediate copies for Spell-Out

One weakness the present account inherits from Chierchia’s is the if dei and des are the result

of movement of the definite determiner onto P, one would expect, given the mirror principle,

*i+di, on a par with the German pronoun+preposition cases davor, lit. “that-from”. Napoli and

Nevis (1987) address this problem and conclude that dei and des are “agreeing forms” of the

proposition di/de. Unfortunately, if this proposal means that dei is not a combination of di plus

31

a definite but purely an inflected form of di, this P-form seems to select bare plurals only, which

is quite odd. If on the other hand it means that dei is indeed di+INFL+DEF, the question is why

such agreeing forms should exist only in combination with definite determiners and why no forms

like *duna (di+una “of+a”) or *nogni (in+ogni “in+every”) actually exist. My hunch is that the

problem might be best approached with the tools of distributed morphology (Harley and Noyer

1999, Embick and Noyer 2001), but I have no contributions to give at this point. Note, however,

that the solution of this problem is orthogonal to the issue of whether partitive determiners are

compositionally derived from partitives: the possibility to incorporate the definite article with P

is available in Italian for prepositions other than di (e.g. in “in”, su “over”, da “from”), yet in

none of these cases can the resulting PP behave as a noun phrase.

8 Conclusions

The notions of ‘economy’and ‘blocking’ have been invoked at various points in this paper. This

might seem to be in bad taste, since if there is one domain where functional elements appear to

have proliferated in the least economical of ways, this is the Italian existential indefinites. After

all, all the forms listed in (66) are possible, and widely used.

(66) HoI_have

vistoseen

{alcuni{some

ragazziboys

//

deiof_the

ragazziboys

//

ragazziboys

//

qualchesome

ragazzo}boy}

If economy is to be preserved, we must conclude that bare plurals, bare partitives, alcuni “some”,

and qualche “some” (which despite its singular form is mostly plural in meaning, see Zamparelli

2004) do not compete with each other. This is not unreasonable: the meaning of the four objects

is close, but not identical, given their distinct scopal and binding properties. Dei differs from

alcuni and qualche in that it can be bound by generic operators (see (25)), and from the bare plural

32

in the possibility to take wide scope and a ‘specific’ reading. Qualche has modal dimension, it

easily spans plural and singular and in certain context has a strong tendency for narrow scope.

Whatever their origin, these meaning differences must be what allows these forms to coexist side

by side even in an economy-ruled language.

Which cases, then, are excluded by economy? One we have already considered is the possi-

bility to build partitives with overt numerals over the kind denotation, which would give exactly

the regular semantics of numerals with common nouns at the cost of an expanded structure. The

next natural question is whether economy can block the inverse case, namely the possibility to

build bare partitives over DPs that do not denote kinds. Another way to put the question is: if

Chierchia’s bare partitive analysis is, as I have argued, wrong, what makes it wrong?

Semantically, a bare partitive built on a regular plural definite would mean ‘one or more of

the boys’, with a presupposition of existence and an anti-maximality entailment. Given that the

singular meaning would probably be excluded via scalar implicatures due to the existence of

the singular indefinite article, the meaning would probably be identical to alcuni dei ragazzi,

which might be preferred on the basis of the idea that the overt determiner alcuni should block

the invisible existential type-shift that accompanies dei raising. One could counter that unlike

the alcuni-form, the dei-form can be bound by adverbs of quantification. But this is not so

clear, given the fact that, by hypothesis, the definite article in this dei-form should be a ‘real’

definite, with existence presuppositions and all the contextual restrictions normally associated

with definiteness. So, the question reduces to whether a normal partitive can be bound by adverbs

of quantification in e.g.

(67) Three of the boys are always tall.

33

Leaving the question unsettled, I conclude that there is at least a concrete possibility that the

missing structure, di plus an object-level definite, is blocked from another overt form, partitives

with alcuni. Of course, the absence of the Chierchia dei-structure could also be due to syntactic

reasons, in particular the notion that the ability to license the upper empty D is specific to the form

of definite article we find in kind-denoting definites, perhaps, if Longobardi (1994) is correct, for

reasons linked to its ‘expletive’ status. I leave an exploration of this topic to future research.

To conclude, in this article I have proposed a compositional derivation for the plural/mass

indefinite determiners in Italian and French. The main idea is that these forms are derived by

applying a partitive operator to a definite which denotes an individual kind. The result of this

operation is the set of individuals which instantiate the kind.

Combined with the idea that the des/dei-complex raises to the Num or D position of the upper

DP, this analysis offers an account for the distribution and scope of dei/des-nominals in Italian

and French, and for various features of the “definite” which appears to be embedded in these

nominals.

34

Notes

1DISCOF/CIMeC, Università di Trento, via Matteo del Ben 5b, 38100, Rovereto (TN), Italy

Email: roberto.zamparelli@unitn.it

2If whether is generated in the CP area, the latter structure is analogous to *John knows

whether and whoi John met ti.

3English some has a “modifier of amount/extent” reading (e.g. Those guys are quite some

studs!) which is acceptable in predicative position. I take this meaning to be irrelevant here.

4Some evidence for a D position of plural some comes from the fact that while this determiner

cannot be coordinated with numerals, as we have seen, it can appear in disjunctions with strong

quantifiers such as most:

(68) We will buy some or (even) {most / ??twenty} (of the) art pieces in this exhibit.

The fact that a some with the meaning ‘approximately’ can appear before plural numerals (“Some

twenty people”) points in the same direction.

5Notice that dei (unlike, e.g. demonstratives) does not block the extraction of the PP argument

of relational nouns:

(69) a. Diof

qualiwhich

linguelanguages

conosciyou_know

benewell

{dei{of_the

//

i}the}

parlantispeaker

nativi?native?

“of which languages do you know some native speakers”

b. una

argomentotopic

diof

cuiwhich

conoscoI_know

deiof_the

verireal

espertiexperts

tt

35

“of topic of which I know some real experts”

A possible line of explanation is that the minimality restrictions introduced by the definite de-

terminer are not triggered by the movement of an argumental PP (as opposed to NP). A second

possibility rests on the intuition that the definite article of relational nouns is in some sense more

‘indefinite’ than the normal one (see the notion of ‘weak definite’ in Poesio 1994 and Zamparelli

1995, ch.5). Structurally, this ‘relational the’ would come from a DP position more internal than

D, thus making the DP edge available for extractions. If this position is located within the projec-

tion targeted by the proform ne, relational the would not be possible in the case of ne-extractions,

obtaining the contrast between (69) and (23)c. Unfortunately, for reasons of space I have to leave

these suggestions unexplored.

6It is also worth observing that tre di loro ‘3 of them’ does not have a corresponding indefinite

DP *di loro, meaning ‘some of them’, and that tre di tutti i ragazzi ‘3 of all the boys’, though

marginal, is much better than *di tutti i ragazzi, taken as a complete indefinite DP. These facts

follow from the theory to be presented here, but they might also be attributed, in Chierchia’s

original analysis, to the fact that they do not contain the preposizione articolata de+DEF’ which

is taken to be a crucial ingredient for raising to the upper D. However, the existence of indefinite

readings built with di plus a non-incorporated demonstrative, illustrated below in (46), shows

that this explanation might not be the whole story.

7This idea was brought to my attention by Katia De Gennaro (pc); it is in fact not new (see in

particular Renzi 1995, pg. 374), but I have never seen it analyzed in any detail. Alan Munn (pc)

tells me that a similar proposal has been made for Japanese in Kakegawa (2000).

8More precisely, a definite with a non-restrictive adjective can be well-formed with a kind-

36

denoting predicate if it can be interpreted as anaphoric to a kind which is contextually salient. The

same is of course true in English: “Pitbullsi are common nowadays ... [These dogs]i evolved from

sausages.”. I take it that anaphoric links are unnecessary for genuine kind-denoting definites.

9The presuppositions come from the modifiers, not the article; cf. “a dog I met here yester-

day”, which does presuppose that dogs exist.

10The idea that adjectives are XPs which can be passed by N-raising is commonly adopted to

explain the N Adj order in Romance, see Cinque (1994), Longobardi (1994). In a head-internal

analysis of relatives, the whole PP-DP2 complex would have been moved from inside the relative.

11The di+PRON form improves considerably in predicative position with a [+HUMAN,+MASC]

interpretation:

(70) ?Luihe

èis

deiof_the

miei/loro.mine/their

“he is one of my/their men”

I propose that these feature collectively help licensing the empty category, making a structure

like (41)b possible.

12In a previous version of this article, circulated on the web, this was the route taken. The

assumption was that the ill-formedness of (54) triggered an application of a ∪, obtaining a plural

property denotation. It seems to me now that the existence of properties inside kind-denoting

DPs is sufficiently well-motivated to grant a simplification of the system, as described below.

37

References

Barker, C. (1998). Partitives, double genitive and anti-uniqueness. Natural Language and

Linguistic Theory 16, 679–717.

Belletti, A. and L. Rizzi (1981). The syntax of ne: some theoretical implications. The Linguis-

tic Review 1, 117–154.

Bosveld-De Smet, L. (1998). On Mass and Plural Quantification. The case of French des/du

- NPs. Ph. D. thesis, University of Groningen.

Bosweld-de Smet, L. (2004). Toward a uniform characterization of noun phrases with “des”

or “du”. In F. Corblin and H. de Swart (Eds.), Handbook of French semantics. Stanford,

CA: CSLI Publications.

Bowers, J. (1988). Extended X-bar theory, the ECP and the left branching condition. In Pro-

ceedings of WCCFL-7, Volume 7, pp. 46–62. Stanford Linguistics Association: Stanford

University.

Bresnan, J. (1973). Syntax of the comparative construction in English. Linguistic Inquiry 4(3),

275–344.

Carlson, G. (1977a). A unified analysis of the English bare plural. Linguistics and Philoso-

phy 1, 413–457.

Carlson, G. and F. Pelletier (Eds.) (1995). The Generic Book. Chicago, IL: University of

Chicago Press.

Carlson, G. N. (1977b). Reference to Kinds in English. Ph. D. thesis, University of Mas-

sachusetts at Amherst.

Casalegno, P. (1987). Sulla logica dei plurali. Teoria (2), 125–143.

38

Chierchia, G. (1998a). Partitives, reference to kinds and semantic variation. In A. Lawson

(Ed.), Proceedings of Semantics And Linguistic Theory, Volume VII, Ithaca, NY, pp. 73–

98. Cornell University: CLC Publications.

Chierchia, G. (1998b). Reference to kinds across languages. Natural Language Semantics 6,

339–405.

Cinque, G. (1994). Partial N-movement in the Romance DP. In G. Cinque et al. (Eds.), Paths

Towards Universal Grammar, pp. 85–110. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University

Press.

Contreras, H. (1986). Spanish bare NPs and the ECP. In I. Bordelois, H. Contreras, and

K. Zagona (Eds.), Generative Studies in Spanish Syntax. Dordrecht: Foris.

Dayal, V. (2000). Number marking and (in)definiteness in kind terms. Ms., Rutgers University.

Dayal, V. (2004). Number marking and (in)definiteness in kind terms. Linguistics and Philos-

ophy 27(4), 393–450.

Delfitto, D. (1993). A propos du statut lexical de l’article partitif en francais: Quelques hy-

pothèses sur l’interaction entre morphologie et forme logique. In A. e. a. Hulk (Ed.), Du

lexique à la morphologie: Du côté de chez Zwaan. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Delfitto, D. and J. Schroten (1992). Bare plurals and the number affix in DP. Probus 3, 155–

185.

Diesing, M. (1992). Indefinites. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Embick, D. and R. Noyer (2001). Movement operations after syntax. Linguistic Inquiry 4(32),

555–595.

Fiengo, R. and J. Higginbotham (1981). Opacity in np. Linguistic Analysis 7, 395–422.

39

Gerstner, C. and M. Krifka (1987). Genericity, an introduction. Ms., Universität Tübingen.

Harley, H. and R. Noyer (1999). State-of-the-article: Distributed Morphology. GLOT 4(4),

3–9.

Heycock, C. and R. Zamparelli (2005). Friends and colleagues: Plurality, coordination, and

the structure of DP. Natural Language Semantics 13, 201–270.

Hoeksema, J. (Ed.) (1996). Partitives: Studies on the syntax and semantics of partitive and

related constructions. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Kakegawa, T. (2000). Noun phrase word order and definiteness in Japanese. In Proceedings

of the 19th West Coast Conference of Formal Linguistics., pp. 246–259.

Kratzer, A. (1989). Stage and individual level predicates. In Papers on quantification. Depart-

ment of Linguistics, UMass. Reprinted in Carlson and Pelletier (1995).

Krifka, M. (1995). Common nouns: a contrastive analysis of English and Chinese. In G. Carl-

son and F. Pelletier (Eds.), The Generic Book, pp. 398–411. Chicago, IL: University of

Chicago Press.

Krifka, M. (2003). Bare NPs: Kind-referring, indefinites, both or neither? In Proceedings of

Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 13, Cornell. CLC Publications.

Krifka, M. et al. (1995). Genericity: An introduction. See Carlson and Pelletier (1995), Chap-

ter 1, pp. 1–124.

Longobardi, G. (1994). Proper names and the theory of N-movement in syntax and logical

form. Linguistic Inquiry 25, 609–665.

Longobardi, G. (2002). How comparative is semantics? a unified parametric theory of bare

nouns and proper names. Natural Language Semantics 4(9), 335–369.

40

Longobardi, G. (2005). Toward a unified grammar of reference. Zeitschrift für Sprachwis-

senschaft 24, 5–44.

Napoli, D. J. and J. Nevis (1987). Inflected prepositions in italian. Phonology Yearbook 4,

211–228.

Poesio, M. (1994). Weak definites. In Proceedings of SALT-4.

Renzi, L. (1995). L’articolo. In L. Renzi, G. Salvi, and A. Cardinaletti (Eds.), Grande gram-

matica Italiana di Consultazione, Volume I. Bologna: Il Mulino.

Roy, I. (2001). Weak des/du-NPs in French and judgement forms. Ms., USC.

Selkirk, E. (1977). Some remarks on noun phrase structure. In P. Culicover, T. Wasow, and

A. Akmajan (Eds.), Formal Syntax, pp. 285–316. London: Academic Press.

Sharvy, R. (1980). A more general theory of definite descriptions. The Philosophical Re-

view 89.4, 607–624.

Storto, G. (2003). On the status of the partitive determiner in Italian. In J. Quer, J. Schroten,

M. Scorretti, P. Sleeman, and E. Verheugd (Eds.), Romance Languages and Linguistic

Theory 2001; Selected Papers from Going Romance 2001, Amsterdam, pp. 315–330. John

Benjamins Publishing Company.

Zamparelli, R. (1995). Layers in the Determiner Phrase. Ph. D. thesis, University of

Rochester. (Published by Garland, 2000).

Zamparelli, R. (1998). A theory of Kinds, Partitives and OF/Z Possessives. In A. Alexiadou

and C. Wilder (Eds.), Possessors, Predicates and Movement in the Determiner Phrase, pp.

259–301. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Zamparelli, R. (2002). Definite and bare kind-denoting noun phrases. In C. Beyssade, R. Bok-

41

Bennema, F. Drijkoningen, and P. Monachesi (Eds.), Romance Languages and Linguistic

Theory 2000; selected papers from ‘Going Romance’ 2000, Utrecht, 30 November – 2

December, Volume 232 of Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, Amsterdam/Philadelphia,

pp. 305–342. John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Zamparelli, R. (2004). On singular existential quantifiers in italian. Ms. Università di Berg-

amo, on-line at http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/jZmMDViN/.

Zucchi, A. (1995). The ingredients of definiteness and the Definiteness Effect. Natural Lan-

guage Semantics 3, 33–78.

42